


shattered pieces of a whole

by magisterequitum



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-11
Updated: 2013-03-11
Packaged: 2017-12-04 22:41:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/715905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magisterequitum/pseuds/magisterequitum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>freedom is merely an illusion, she finds.</p><p>(post 4.15 and set before this coming episode)</p>
            </blockquote>





	shattered pieces of a whole

She goes to sleep naked. She burned all her clothes except the ones on her body and they stink of decomposing flesh and ash. No thanks, so she peels them off and strips down and walks through the boarding house in bare flesh. She nearly rolls her eyes when Stefan and Damon both stare at her as if she's lost it; maybe she has, maybe she hasn't.

"Just throw a dollar at me if it's something you've never seen before," she says to them both. Long echoed words and maybe she really does mean it.

She claims Damon's bed because why not, and it's the least he can owe her anyway for making her this way, stretches out naked and stares at the ceiling. Her mind's quiet for the first time in over a year.

It's nice, she thinks.

 

 

 

 

They, Stefan and Damon leading the charge with a reluctant looking Caroline in the corner, stage some intervention the next morning.

She'd take it more seriously if Hypocrite #1 and Hypocrite #2 weren't doing the talking.

She yawns and rises from the couch. "I'm going to school."

"Elena," Caroline tries, speaking for the first time.

"What?" Her jaw clenches for just a moment and then relaxes. She widens her eyes and stares at all three of them. "I'm just doing what you told me to do."

 

 

 

 

"I heard she completely lost it. Went full on psycho nuts when they told her about her house burning down. And her brother too."

She rolls her neck, cocking her head to hear the words of the girl four lockers down.

She's suddenly hungry for lunch.

The girl doesn't make a sound when she pierces her neck in the bathroom. One way of shutting her up.

 

 

 

 

Her body jackknifes in the bed, limbs flailing as she tries to catch herself, her muscles clenched and chest rising in a series of unnecessary inhales and exhales.

_Reds and oranges dance behind her eyelids, giving way to murky blues and the taste of salt._

She falls back to the bed.

 

 

 

 

The cheerleading uniform still fits. She looks at herself in the mirror, smoothes her fingers over her hips, frowning a bit at where her skirt's a bit loose.

_It's other hands smoothing over her skirt then, long fingers with chipped finger nails from where they'd played outside or baked in the kitchen._

She blinks and then it's just her.

 

 

 

 

"What is wrong with you?"

Her shoulders hit the back of the wall as Caroline pushes her away from the bleeding cheerleader that had been her mid-morning snack. She watches in annoyance as the blonde fixes the other girl, wiping her meal from the pale neck and giving her a little lie to make it alright.

"Wrong with me? What's wrong with you?" She sneers, pushing away from the wall. "Don't you ever get tired of micro-managing everyone? You're such a tight ass."

Caroline narrows her eyes, pulling herself up, her mouth twisting. "Oh, really? You didn't mind when I was micro-managing your ass in the eighth grade so you didn't embarrass yourself in front of the whole school over Bobby Fisher."

"Don't think I don't know you didn't cause that in the first place."

"I did not." Caroline scoffs, but the jut of her jaw gives her away.

"Everyone knows you try too hard to make people like you." So easy to say and really she's not sure who she's even talking to anymore. The freedom and liberation of being unable to feel is intoxicating in this moment. You made me this, you wanted me to stop, so now here I am

"Pot meet kettle," Caroline shrieks and then rushes her.

They fall in a heavy pile of kicking limbs and claw-like fingers.

 

 

 

 

There's agonizing unbearable pain in her head, as if the worst headache ever is splitting open her skull. It takes her too long to realize what it is, her body so numb and so used to pain before, and then now from shutting it all off and ignoring. But she can't ignore this.

"What is going on? Caroline?"

She recognizes the voice and her mouth is an open plea; she'd meant to snarl, meant to hiss, because isn't that what she's supposed to do when a witch tries to fry your head? It's not what she does, she can't make herself do it. Instead, her body twitches and falls sideways, her hands fisting in her hair, her knees to her chest, her mouth agape. Every part of her aches, not just her head. Her throat convulses with screams that won't come out.

Hands pull her close to a body that smells of familiar lime coconut lotion, soft curls whispering over her cheeks. "Elena, it's okay."

Her eyes are screwed shut and she tries so hard, but her body's a live wire circuit of hurt and anger and grief and sadness and shame and guilt and happiness and exhaustion.

Another set of hands and another body kneels down to the other side of her, frantic fingers combing over her face and sliding down wet trails of something on her cheeks. "I'm sorry, so sorry." The soothing voice of someone she knows, fingers that have held her tight since she was little and unafraid.

"I hate you, I hate you, IhateyouIhateyouIhateyouIhateyou."

Her throat unclenches and her ears realize that's her voice and it's tears that Bonnie's wiping from her face and it's an old song that Caroline's humming in her ear and it's them holding her between them.

 

 

 

 

_I hate you,_

_you_ , Elena says to herself.


End file.
